The leaders came to Moscow again on Wednesday, 28 October. According to the Kremlin, the third Russia-Africa summit runs for two days, chaired by Vladimir Putin and by Évariste Ndayishimiye, president of Burundi and current chair of the African Union. Al Jazeera’s summit guide counts 48 countries confirmed, 22 of them sending heads of state or government. In Sochi in 2019 there were 43 heads of state. In St Petersburg in 2023, 17.

The halls will hear the usual words: investment, food security, energy, payment systems. The organisers’ phrase for the coming 2027-2029 action plan is “mutually beneficial cooperation”. Writing in Al Jazeera, the columnist Tafi Mhaka argues that the benefit has run mostly one way. In his account Russia’s growing reach has served Moscow, and the rulers Moscow protects, far better than it has served the Africans it was supposed to make richer and safer.

The arithmetic of promises

A summit is measured in documents. Sochi, October 2019, produced 92 agreements and a pledge from Putin to double annual trade to $40bn. St Petersburg, July 2023, produced 161 more and a 2023-2026 action plan. On 20 August this year Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for Russia’s foreign ministry, promised another large round of intergovernmental agreements and commercial contracts.

Then comes the ledger. By Russia’s own statistics, merchandise trade with Africa reached $27.1bn in 2025, well short of the $40bn target. In the first eight months of 2026 Russia sold Africa $14bn in goods and bought $3.2bn. Much of what flows south is grain: 10.2 million tonnes of wheat in the first half of 2026 alone, with Egypt the largest buyer. The bread is real and the hunger it answers is real. But Mhaka’s point is that wheat and fertiliser enrich Russian producers and build no African factories.

Promises are signed in a hall. Factories have to be built somewhere.

At Sochi, the fertiliser producer Uralchem and Angola’s Grupo Opaia agreed on a $1.2bn ammonia and urea complex meant to start production in 2023. That year Uralchem walked away. Egypt is the exception that carries a price. At El Dabaa, Rosatom is building four nuclear reactors that employ more than 18,000 Egyptians, paid for largely with a $25bn Russian loan that Cairo must repay with interest. President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi was among the leaders scheduled to meet Putin on the summit’s first day.

So was Denis Sassou Nguesso of the Republic of Congo, where a proposed petroleum-products pipeline from Pointe-Noire to Brazzaville would hand Russian interests 90 percent of the joint venture and the Congolese state oil company 10 percent, with a 25-year concession and guaranteed transport tariffs. In April, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said design work would begin this year and operations in 2029. Russian officials have also called the pipeline a way to shield petroleum exports from the Western sanctions imposed after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. For Moscow, Africa has become part of the sanctions-evasion machinery as well as a market.

Kidal, Bombori, Sevare

Sweden’s Defence Research Agency has counted at least 57 Russian military and security agreements with 39 African countries. Many amount to little in practice. Others open the way to training and to military infrastructure. The agency’s study, Beyond Wagner, traces how Moscow first relied on the Wagner Group before moving much of the work to the Africa Corps, controlled by the defence ministry. Wagner stayed on in the Central African Republic.

Mali shows what such help amounts to. Wagner fighters and Malian troops took the northern city of Kidal in November 2023. Separatist rebels took it back in April 2026. On 6 October Russian-backed forces returned after an air campaign pushed the rebels out. The town has changed hands three times and is still not safe.

The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project recorded 49 air strikes by Malian forces and the Africa Corps between April and August, killing 89 civilians. Human Rights Watch reported that on 10 July, Africa Corps fighters killed nine people in Bombori, a village in the Mopti region, four of them children, and burned homes. At a military base in Sevare, detainees held by Malian soldiers and Africa Corps personnel between May and August were beaten, given electric shocks and waterboarded.

For the villagers in between, caught between the insurgents and the forces sent to defeat them, the outcome has been more violence and no protection they can count on.

Protection for the rulers

For the rulers, Russian help works better. On 29 August the Africa Corps helped General Abdourahamane Tiani put down a mutiny in Niger with ground and air support, a role Moscow’s ambassador confirmed. Tiani survived. Nigeriens still have no political parties and no election timetable, and their civil liberties are tightly restricted. On 17 September the junta stripped five more exiled critics of their nationality.

In the Central African Republic, Faustin-Archange Touadera has held power for ten years. On 5 March he thanked Putin in person, saying Russian security forces had made possible December’s presidential election, which gave him a third term despite an opposition boycott. Wagner still guards his government. Opponents face repression, journalists face arrest, and Russian fighters have killed and tortured civilians. To swap Wagner for the Africa Corps, Moscow reportedly asked for close to 14 million euros ($15.7m) a month, while Russian-linked companies kept profiting from the country’s gold.

One reflection suggests itself. A ruler who owes his survival to foreign guns has given up some of his sovereignty, whatever the communiqués say.

Paid-for news

Moscow also helps shape what people hear. In July, the Russian state broadcaster RT signed a content-sharing deal with Tafouk TV, the channel run by the military governments of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. It has broadcast from Bamako since September, celebrating army victories and often passing over insurgent attacks, while local journalists are arrested, disappear or are censored. A France 24 investigation published on 3 April found nearly 650 pro-Russian articles placed in 35 West African outlets between June and October 2024. Leaked documents listed payments of $250 to $700 per article, and some outlets did not know that Russian operatives had arranged the placements.

In July an Angolan court convicted two Russians linked to Africa Politology, a political influence network with Kremlin ties, of terrorism and espionage. Prosecutors said the men had exploited protests over fuel prices to stir up unrest against the government and had tried to sway Angola’s 2027 election. Igor Ratchin was sentenced to 11 years and Lev Lakshtanov to eight. Both denied the charges and have appealed.

Mhaka asks African leaders to hold Moscow to the standards they apply to Washington, Brussels and Beijing: fair trade, productive investment, respect for sovereignty and accountability for abuses against civilians.

No power, regardless of history, deserves exemptions.

A joint declaration and a signing ceremony are scheduled for Thursday. The new papers will join the 253 agreements already signed at Sochi and St Petersburg.